Thought You Should Know
by BulletsCoffeeFaith
Summary: Spoilers for episode 5x15, "Bash." A short drabble of a character study. William Schuester receives news of his former student's hospitalization.


**Spoilers for episode 5x15 "Bash." Talk of violence and hate crimes.**

* * *

It was Rachel who called at 12:32 A.M. to deliver the blow.

In a state of obvious distress and panic, his former protege had begun rattling off her own teeth, sounding as though she were close to tears, before Will could even squeeze out the initial "hello." He couldn't make out much through her near-incomprehensible babbling, but the small bits and pieces he managed to pull together were enough to send his heart racing and ice-cold panic rushing through his veins.

_Kurt, attacked, hospital, don't know, can't see him, won't tell us, thought you should know..._

Had it been a choice, had he a better paying job and had he not a wife with a child on the way, Will wouldn't have hesitated to book the next flight out to New York City and see Kurt in person, for himself. According to Rachel, it could have been as little as a minor concussion and a couple of scrapes, to as terrible as to say he might be lying on his death bed. And if the latter happened to be the case – which he hoped and prayed it wasn't, not now, not one of his kids, not so young – Will knew he couldn't let it happen without giving the younger man a proper goodbye.

But as it was, a flight from Lima, Ohio to New York City would take away his soon to be son or daughter's diaper privileges for the first two months of his/her existence, and there simply was no extra money to be scraped up if he wanted to continue providing what meager support he could for his blooming family.

_But they _are _your family,_ a voice whispered somewhere in the back of his mind as he lowered the cell phone with a shaking hand onto the night stand, hearing Emma's soft breathing as she lie obliviously asleep on the other side of the bed. _He's your kid just as much as the one she's carrying. He's hurt, he's hurt and he might be dying, and you're just sitting there? Go to him! Be there for him, for all of them, isn't that your job, don't you care anymore, just because Sue ended it? Go, go, go!_

_I can't,_ he thought back, clutching the edge of the mattress in both hands, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden sting behind them. _God, we can't afford it, I can't be with him, I want to, but I can't..._

Kurt Hummel, who had admitted on several occasions that the re-installation of the glee club at McKinley High School has undoubtedly saved his life, who was one of the strongest people he'd ever had the pleasure to know, one of the amazing, talented boys he'd watched grow into an honorable man.

Kurt, who might die tonight as the result of a violent, meaningless hate crime and never be seen alive again.

"Will?"

Will hadn't realized he was breathing so raggedly until he stopped and listened to his wife's worried, sleep-slurred voice. Along with the frantic racing of his heart, his lungs and head were aching with the need for more oxygen. He felt like he'd run a mile, and all he'd really done was answer his phone.

"Will, honey?" Her voice came again, accompanied by a chin resting on his shoulder and small, soft hands rubbing wide circles into his bare biceps. In another instance, in any other moment, her ministrations would have relaxed and soothed him. Right now, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to feel happy again.

"Kurt's in the hospital," Will whispered, oddly void and hollow, barely hearing Emma's sharp intake of breath through the pounding in his ears. Her hands pressed ever harder into his skin, rough enough to leave bruises. "They...he was attacked. They think it was...they think it was a hate crime."

Silence flooded the room, full of dread and unspoken what if's. Emma inhaled, long and deep and shaking, and pressed her lips deep into his shoulder as she whispered.

"Okay. Okay...um...w-what are you going to do?"

William Schuester glanced between her worry-creased face and the small bump of stomach where their child was dwelling, and lifted his eyes to the picture of last year's glee club sitting in a place of honor, front-and-center on their wooden dresser.

He gently pried her hands from his shoulders and stood, scooping his car keys off the night stand and stepping into his faded blue Levi's.

"I'm going to New York."


End file.
